Ambiance, decorum, manner and utterances at Mass should all speak powerfully of another world

The following excerpt is from an article by Fr. John A. Kiley, entitled "Mass should be enlightening and elevating, not a cookie cutter ritual" [PDF, scroll down] from the “The Quiet Corner” column on page 18 of the July 26, 2007 issue of Rhode Island Catholic, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Providence:

Bishop Donald W. Trautman of Erie, PA, has taken great exception to the proposed new translation of the Mass into English. In a recent article in America magazine, his Excellency quoted the following Advent prayer as an example of the new rendering of the text: “Accept, O Lord, these gifts, and by your power, change them into the sacrament of salvation, in which the prefiguring sacrifices of the Fathers have an end and the true Lamb is offered, he who was born ineffably of the inviolate Virgin.”

Apparently references to the prefiguring sacrifices, Christ’s ineffable birth and Mary’s inviolate virginity stuck on the prelate’s tongue. What will John and Mary Catholic make of these phrases, he asks.

The bishop takes exception to other phrases employed by the English translators: God, who suffused blessed John with the spirit of mercy; Cyril, an unvanquished champion of the divine motherhood; consubstantial to the Father; incarnate of the Virgin Mary; sullied; unfeigned; gibbet; wrought; thwart.

The bishop points out that elsewhere in the liturgical translations the priest is provided with a sentence eleven lines long and a phrase totaling 56 words.

The article is worth reading in its entirety.

[Hat tip to R.Q.]